Starting a prayer group is something I would be happy to do. I am based in Arbroath and the closest Orthodox Church is that of St Andrews, but they only come to Dundee (at the university) monthly, if the website is up to date.

There is also a Coptic Orthodox church in Kirkcaldy, Fife but that is a bit further. Any others are about 100 miles at least away.

So how would one go about starting a prayer group with the support of BOC?

Just yesterday I received some information about a day conference being held at Kirkaldy. You might be interested in attending. I certainly would if I could get there.

Here are the details...

=======================================

I am pleased to send you the details of the talks of Sept. Conference as follows:

Speaker: Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty

Inner Joy is the way to victory

Friday 19.09.08:
Talk 1 ( Joy: is it the way or a choice? is it optional or essential?)
Saturday 20.09.08
Talk 2 ( The Gift of Joy and snare of sadness)
Talk 3 ( Suffering : gift or snare? how to be joyful during suffering)
Talk 4 ( Repentance, the Joyful way to the kingdom)
Talk 5 ( Joy in Prayer: the ultimate joy in the liturgy)
Sunday 21.08.09
Talk 6 ( Obstacles to Joy and how to grow in Joy)
Talk 7 ( The Joyful life in Christ)

Please find attached also some suggestions to transportation from different station and airports.

Please try as much as you can to make your arrival times around 6 to 7 pm on Friday to have more convenient transportation. The Venue is around one our from Edinburgh airport.

=====================================

In regards to a prayer group. Do you have either the British Orthodox Fellowship Handbook, or the British Orthodox Prayer Book? A prayer group, and many of our congregations if the priest is away, use the service of Morning or Evening Prayer from those books.

This lasts about 20 minutes, and can be supplemented by the reading of an Orthodox homily, which we can provide. Or more extended teaching texts, or even a CD with audio teaching. One of the aims is to experience Orthodoxy through practicing Orthodoxy, as far as folk feel able.

If there was interest in your area and you managed to develop a group which met regularly, then visits can be arranged to provide other experiences and teaching.

Do let us know what you might want to do after praying about the matter and we will help you as far as we are able. I am up in Stirling fairly often to visit my wife's family so if you did get something started then I am sure that I and others could support you in a variety of ways. Even videos of teaching material.

If you have worked through what might be called the intellectual side of conversion, considering the doctrines of Orthodox Christianity and are now wanting to actually join us, then I would suggest the next step would be to begin Orthodox worship and attend with Orthodox congregations.

Although we don't currently have a British Orthodox congregation in Scotland there are Oriental Orthodox liturgies celebrated in Scotland both Coptic and Indian Orthodox. So perhaps to begin a prayer group as Fr Peter suggests and at least four times a year to attend an Orthodox liturgy might be the way forward.

Without giving too much personal information away are you able to indicate roughly where you live? This might help to locate Orthodox worship in geographical relaiton to you.

The Indian Orthodox have worship in Aberdeen (three quarters of an hour from Tayside? Though I live near Portsmouth so it's all hundreds of miles from me and I may be completely wrong!!!) so I will try to find out when they are there. They are busy welcoming their new bishop at the moment but I will see what I can find out for you. In their London Church they worship in English and Malayalam on alternate weeks so it's in English twice a month - though I appreciate the Aberdeen service may be monthly as is their Portsmouth service and may be in Malayalam, not English. Anyway I will see what I can find out for you.

I have managed to get in contact with Fr Aziz of St Marks Coptic Church in Kirkcaldy tonight, so I am plannig on attending a service on Sunday, where a family are to be Baptised into the Church and hopefully have a chat and find out more afterwards

I am sorry but I was not around to read your posting before your visit to the Coptic Orthodox Church to offer any thoughts on things you might do or not do but hopefully everything went fine - do let us know how you got on.